Twenty dead after refugee boat sinks on way to Australia

At least twenty asylum seekers have drowned and scores more are feared dead
after a rickety boat bound for Australia sunk off Indonesia, amid a growing
diplomatic row over Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s crackdown on seagoing
migrants.

Amember of the Australian navy, left, assists rescued asylum-seekers as they transfer to an Indonesian search and rescue boat in the waters off western JavaPhoto: AFP

By Jonathan Pearlman, Sydney

3:53PM BST 27 Sep 2013

Indonesian police said last night that locals in west Java “found 20 dead bodies floating in the water, most of them are children”, while 25 adults were rescued. The boat was believed to have been carrying 120 people, originally from Jordan, Lebanon and Yemen.

The sinking comes as Mr Abbott prepares to make a difficult overseas visit on Monday — his first as Australian prime minister — to try to soothe tensions with Indonesia over his hard-line stance on refugees.

Mr Abbott has appointed a three-star general to oversee a controversial clampdown on boat people and plans to deploy the navy to haul back boats to Indonesian waters.

But the plan has faced severe criticism from Jakarta, which says it is an affront to Indonesia’s sovereignty.

The Abbott government was left embarrassed by a damaging leak by Indonesia on Thursday of details of private talks between the countries over the issue of asylum seekers. Analysts said it was the worst crisis between the countries since Australia dispatched troops to support East Timor’s independence in 1999.

The extraordinary account of the meeting between the two countries’ foreign ministers in New York showed Australia’s foreign minister, Julie Bishop, urging her Indonesian counterpart to deal with the issue “behind the scenes” and “quietly”. For his part, Indonesia’s foreign minister, Marty Natalegawa, warned her that “unilateral steps by Australia” could lead to a breakdown of trust between the nations.

Twenty-four hours after the leak, Indonesia’s foreign ministry claimed it was an accident.

Australia and Indonesia have a long history of mistrust and suspicion which peaked in recent years during East Timor’s successful fight for independence; ties have since become warm but are threatening to unravel over Mr Abbott’s new asylum seeker plans.

He campaigned with an oft-repeated pledge to “stop the boats” and has begun plans to expand detention centres for asylum seekers on remote Pacific islands, conditions at which have led them to be labelled “gulags” by critics. He has imposed a media blackout on reports of boat arrivals.

But Mr Abbott said the tensions were a “passing irritant” and that Australia would do nothing “foolish” to affect relations between the two neighbours.

“The last thing that anyone should want is to have Australia’s relationship with Indonesia defined by this boats issue which I am sure will be but a passing irritant,” he told Radio 3AW.

“The incoming government will not do foolish things. We will do strong and sensible things which build on the good relationship that we already have with Indonesia.” Australia had a large influx of asylum seekers after the previous Labour government softened the country’s refugee policies, with 50,000 boat people arriving from 2007.

The navy is not yet believed to have forcibly towed back a boat to Indonesia, though it has rescued two boatloads in recent days and reportedly transferred the asylum seekers to Indonesian authorities.